Verse of the Day for February 22

Paul is describing what the church is to put on, and he uses clothing language throughout — bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering.

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.

Two separate instructions sit side by side and they are often confused. Forgiving deals with what has been done. Forbearing deals with what a person is simply like.

Some of what wears you down about someone is not sin and never will be. It is temperament, pace, volume, the way they tell a story. There is nothing to forgive because nothing wrong has happened.

Forbearance is the word for carrying that without commentary. It assumes ongoing friction as the normal condition of people living close together, rather than a problem to be solved.

And the clause at the end fixes the measure again: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Trying to forgive a personality is a category error, and it exhausts people who are genuinely trying to do the right thing.

Some things are not to be resolved. They are to be carried.